Kohl's

Kohl's is one of America's largest department store chains, a fixture of suburban shopping centers with more than 1,100 stores across 49 states as of fiscal year-end 2025 and a customer base the company itself puts at over 60 million. Headquartered in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KSS, the company sells the kind of mid-market apparel, home goods, and accessories that rarely invite political scrutiny. Yet Kohl's has been pulled into the culture-war conversation more than once, from a Pride-merchandise boycott to a fight over the 2024 political conventions in its hometown, and the way it has handled those moments tells a more interesting story than its quiet brand image suggests. For a curious shopper, the question is whether a company that explicitly says it stays out of politics actually does, and what its record shows.

A Company That Says It Is Not Political

Kohl's is unusually direct about wanting no part of partisan politics. In its formal Political Activity Policy and its Fiscal 2025 Political Activity Report, the company states that it does not use company resources to contribute to candidates, political parties, ballot initiatives, referendum campaigns, electioneering communications, or political convention host committees, and that it makes no contributions to 527 organizations or 501(c)(4) social welfare groups. [1] It does not operate a company-sponsored political action committee. Many large corporations run PACs that funnel money to candidates of both parties; Kohl's has chosen not to, which means there is no corporate PAC and no company-directed candidate giving to weigh. The company does note that its employees remain free to make personal political contributions on their own time and with their own money, with no reimbursement from Kohl's.

Not a PAC, but Not Zero Footprint: Trade Associations

Declining to run a PAC does not mean a company has no political exposure at all, and Kohl's is transparent about one channel that remains. In its Fiscal 2025 report, the company disclosed that it paid membership dues above $25,000 to two retail trade associations: the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. [2] These are mainstream industry groups that lobby on retail business issues such as tax, trade, and supply-chain policy rather than ideological causes, and Kohl's states that it does not make additional contributions to fund their political activities and does not necessarily endorse their entire agendas. Still, trade associations sometimes lobby on members' behalf, so this is the one place a reader can see Kohl's connected, indirectly, to organized advocacy. It is a modest and conventional footprint, not a partisan one.

The Milwaukee Convention Test

A vivid illustration of Kohl's approach came in 2024, when its home region drew national political attention. Milwaukee was selected to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, after the city had earlier been considered for the Democratic National Convention. As a prominent Milwaukee-area employer, Kohl's could have leaned into either. Instead, the company stated that, in keeping with its political activity policy, it was "not a political organization nor donor" and would not sponsor or engage in either party's convention events. [3] Rather than fund a convention directly, Kohl's said it supported its hometown through the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, a nonpartisan regional business group, taking the identical approach for both the planned DNC and the RNC. In practice the MMAC channel did route support that reached the Republican host committee, so the neutrality was procedural rather than absolute, but the company applied the same hands-off rule to both parties. Notably, when Kohl's declined to sponsor the RNC, it drew a conservative boycott from critics who wanted it to back the event, and a viral claim that Kohl's had "pulled out" of an RNC sponsorship was false, since the company had never agreed to sponsor it in the first place. [4]

Reading the Campaign-Finance Data Carefully

Political-money trackers do show some dollars associated with the Kohl's name. OpenSecrets recorded roughly $99,699 in contributions tied to Kohl's in the 2024 cycle and about $120,000 in lobbying. [5] These figures require careful reading. Because Kohl's runs no corporate PAC, OpenSecrets categorizes the contribution total as giving from individuals who list Kohl's as their employer, along with their immediate families, rather than money directed by the company itself. Personal contributions by employees across a workforce of roughly 100,000 are their own choices and are not a corporate political signal. The lobbying figure, drawn from federal lobbying disclosures tracked by OpenSecrets, is modest for a company of Kohl's size and reflects ordinary retail-industry advocacy on business issues rather than ideological campaigning.

Where the Real Signal Lives: The Pride Collection Backlash

If Kohl's has a genuine political reputation, it was forged not in campaign finance but in merchandising. In 2023, alongside Target, Bud Light, and others, Kohl's became a target of a conservative boycott campaign over its Pride Month collection. The collection, marketed under inclusive branding, included LGBTQ-themed apparel and home goods, and critics focused particular anger on children's and infant items, including a Pride-themed bodysuit set. [6] The hashtag #BoycottKohls trended, and prominent conservative accounts urged shoppers to take their business elsewhere. Kohl's did not retreat in the way some peers did; its collection page stated a commitment to "amplifying and affirming the voices of the LGBTQIA+ community" not just during Pride Month but year round. [7] That willingness to keep an inclusive marketing posture under public pressure is the clearest cultural-political signal in the company's record. It is not the only one: Kohl's earned a perfect 100 on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, the most widely cited benchmark of corporate LGBTQ workplace policies, for several consecutive years into the mid-2020s, a score that requires adopting specific LGBTQ-inclusive workplace benefits and nondiscrimination practices. That measurable workplace record, set against an ironclad zero-dollar policy on partisan candidate giving, is the bifurcation at the heart of Kohl's profile: documented inclusion on the workplace-policy side, deliberate neutrality on the campaign-money side.

A Turbulent Stretch, but Not a Political One

It is worth separating politics from the broader turmoil Kohl's has experienced. The retailer has struggled financially, with declining sales, store closures, and rapid leadership churn. In 2025, the company terminated newly hired CEO Ashley Buchanan "for cause" after an investigation found he had directed Kohl's into vendor transactions involving an undisclosed conflict of interest; the company stated the decision was unrelated to its performance or financial reporting. Michael Bender, a Kohl's director since 2019 who had been serving as board chair, stepped in as interim CEO and was named permanent CEO in November 2025. [8] This episode is a corporate-governance and ethics story, not a political one, and it carries no partisan meaning. It matters to anyone evaluating the company's stability, but it is not a lean signal.

What It Adds Up To

For a shopper trying to read Kohl's politically, the honest picture is a study in restraint punctuated by one notable cultural stance. The company runs no PAC, makes no corporate candidate contributions, and applied the same hands-off rule to both party conventions in its own hometown. The political dollars that appear in databases are categorized as the personal choices of individual employees, not corporate direction, and its only organized-advocacy tie is conventional retail trade-association membership. The one place Kohl's has publicly planted a flag is in inclusive Pride merchandising, which it marketed and kept live even as a conservative boycott formed against it. That combination, a company that works hard to stay corporately apolitical yet stood by an LGBTQ-friendly marketing position, is what makes its profile distinctive.

[1] Kohl's Corporation, Political Activity Policy (effective February 2025) and Fiscal 2025 Political Activity Report. https://s204.q4cdn.com/271435555/files/doc_document_list/2026/Apr/13/Political-Activity-Policy-and-FY2025-Report-0415af.pdf

[2] Kohl's Corporation, Fiscal 2025 Political Activity Report (trade-association dues above $25,000 to the National Retail Federation and Retail Industry Leaders Association). https://s204.q4cdn.com/271435555/files/doc_document_list/2026/Apr/13/Political-Activity-Policy-and-FY2025-Report-0415af.pdf

[3] Kohl's Corporation, "Kohl's Political Activity Policy and Milwaukee Events," and Newsweek coverage quoting the company's "not a political organization nor donor" statement. https://corporate.kohls.com/news/kohls-political-activity-policy-and-milwaukee-events

[4] Newsweek, "Kohl's Faces Boycott After Retailer Snubs Republican Convention," and Wikipedia's account of the false "pulled out" claim and the MMAC channel to the host committee. https://www.newsweek.com/kohls-faces-boycott-snubs-republican-convention-1909473

[5] OpenSecrets, Kohl's Corp organization profile, 2024 cycle ($99,699 in contributions; $120,000 lobbying; $0 outside spending). https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/kohl-s-corp/summary?id=D000042695

[6] Newsweek, coverage of the 2023 Kohl's Pride collection backlash and children's items. https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-companies-facing-boycotts-pride-month-1803701

[7] PinkNews, "Kohl's stores threatened with boycott over Pride-themed merch," quoting the company's collection-page commitment. https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/30/kohls-pride-month-boycott-backlash-lgbtq/

[8] Kohl's Corporation Form 8-K (May 1, 2025), CEO transition; board terminates Ashley Buchanan for cause, appoints Michael Bender. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000885639/000119312525109074/d925446dex991.htm